My first love

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For the first time I have found another girl very attractive.

I actually care about the different details in her life a great deal, a rarity for me.

Currently trying to make a long-lasting friendship (we have talked for a bit on and off the past few months)...my question is how can one tell when a girl is ready to advance the relationship?

Also, how late of love were the members here?

If she was ready to advance to the relationship stage, you would know about it. Sounds you have become far too obsessive and put too much thought into a girl that isn't actually even a girlfriend, I don't think it is healthy and I think it's best for you to ask her out directly, if she only tells you that she thinks of you as a friend, don't become passive aggressive and bitter, accept it and try your luck with other girls, don't fixate on one girl if you aren't in a long term relationship with her.

Awww, your first love! That's so nice! I think if you really like this girl, then ask her out. What have you got to lose? If you don't, someone else will. If she says "yes," great! If she says "no," it's not the end of the world. And if she says "no," you can still be friends. Like Wolfheart said, if she says, "no," don't fixate on it. There are other girls. You're still young. You've got plenty of time. Good luck!

Hum... I think I can relate to that.

I've read about it too, but I'll talk mostly about my own experience. If you try to befriend a woman before dating her, you will be taking the long, hard path in the best of the cases. In the worst one, she'll be used on you being her friend, and will be unwilling to go "further" (quotation marks because being in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship isn't necessarily the continuation of a friendship, especially not a long lasting one like the one you say you want). To put some evidence, I've tried to do that several times already, and it has in more cases than not led to failure. I wrote a whole paragraph about the first one, at school, but then I realized you don't really need the details . The important part is that I had to stop being friends with her, to cut off all contact, before reattempting eight months later, better informed and more experienced, before I could be with her. She told me that if I had started dating her right away before being friends, she would have dated me that much earlier. Don't regret it though, her rejection kick-started an inner change process long overdue, that made me a better person.

The second one is more related to your situation. It's this girl I am compatible with, we talk a lot about books, psychology, the meaning of life, other less important things, besides a lot of not really important ones, which in the end do count. We met in college and clicked right away, and then we kept seeing each other every once in a while, I even went out with her once, but I just don't know yet how to be smooth and couldn't find a way to make her my girlfriend. Then I realized it was too late, and decided to be her friend. We had good times together, once we even stayed a whole night in the campus, sleeping in some corridor. As friends. A year after, exactly on last St. Valentines day, after a series of unlikely events we resulted on a live-music bar at 11:pm, and after seeing her all smiley, slightly dishevelled hair, stating how perfect that evening was, and we making plans of all the great things we could do in the future, I decided to just tell her that I thought we had potential as a couple. The person I am, I was a bit too rational when telling that to her, and I went so far to say that it was ok if she didn't want to, as long as she wouldn't treat me awkwardly in the future. To my surprise, she did agree. But again, a relationship and a friendship are different things, and after some more talking we decided to leave it in a "friends with benefits" status.

To highlight the things that are important to your situation, among the things we talked were
- She told me that she was open to the idea of dating me last year, but then time passed and it just died off.
- She totally didn't expect that I would think of her in that way. She was already sued to me being her friend, and saw me that way too.
- I'm not romantically involved with her. It's mostly the same as it was before, only that now we hold hands and sleep on the same bed when we go to each other's apartment (and by sleep I mean just sleeping. No more.). We haven't even kissed yet, which I see as a problem that I will discuss in my own thread at another time, now we're talking about you .

Now that you have all the background information I think we need, I can give you some actual, concise advice. From my point of view, you already began on the left foot with being friends with her before pursuing a relationship. I can't really agree with Wolfheart when he says that "If she was ready to advance to the relationship stage, you would know about it.". My biggest problem has always been knowing whether a girl is interested in me or not, once a girl attraction to me was glaringly obvious to my friends, but I remained oblivious. If you got AS it could be the same for you. You can always check her body language and see, but that's something I'm still working on and can't personally vouch for. [url=This]http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt20753.html[/url] guide from this same forum may help you with that though. Now, you should ask yourself, how much do you like her? Could you talk with her about the other men in her life? Would you risk the friendship you have or will have to pursue a romantic relationship? Could you handle her rejection?

Wolfheart and Princess gave sound advice, I can't really say if you're obsessed or not but otherwise if you want to ask her out, you should do it as soon as possible, so you get an answer instead of wondering what could have been for the rest of your life. If she says yes, you've got a girlfriend. If she says no, you'll have a friend if you handle it right (seriously, don't be passive-aggressive and bitter) and your mind will be free to pursue someone else.

Whew, now I get why some people say I overextend when answering something

Good luck!

I have given it some thought.

First though, Wolfheart, I am far from obsessed. I just really want to make sure I can make this work with her (name's Angelique.) We have shared many a good conversation and have had no difficulties whatsoever in socializing, which is rare for me.

Princess78, you make an excellent point about having plenty of time. I have never met a woman I feel this comfortable with though, so I don't want to rush it. I do find it odd I have almost no lust involved in the attraction, most men are pigs about that. Kinda thought I'd be that way on my first love.

And finally, Shatbat. You say you are too long-winded but what you typed is actually a very helpful story to go off of...I imagine the best way of approaching this is occasional gifts (if I read her personality correctly) and conversations on occasion to get to know one another. I have found out quite a bit about her through her Facebook posts, so that should help with the gifting/humor choices. Nice to know I found a cultured rock chick haha.

But yes, back to your points. The idea of a girl getting caught in a position of wanting to keep a friendship is very possible. I will likely figure out her personality and try to get comfortable around her more and hope she does the same to see if I take it further.

Unique name and good music choice.
That's also my type, haha.
Life is too short to wonder what could have been. Besides, ask if she knows any fellow rock chicks like herself as a friend asked.

PastFixations, I think that would make her feel rejected.

So how did everyone else handle their first love? It seems confusing to me that most people have fond recollections and not anxiety.

Glad I could help! Like I said, you're young. You've got plenty of time to find the right girl.